Classic Poem

Yet not this color, not these lovely forms,
That chiefly should engross and ask thy praise;
Rather the revelation of abiding grace
Continuous, as the morning's voice
Lifts up the chant of universal faith,
Perpetual newness and the health in things.
This, is the startling theme, the lovely birth
Each morn of a new day, so wholly new,
So absolutely penetrated by itself,
The fresh, the fair, the ever-living grace,—
The tender joy, that still forever clothes
This orb of Beauty, this, of bliss the abode!
Therefore, fling off poor slumberer, thy dark robe
Woven of night, ungird the dream-claspt brew,
And freely forth exulting in thy joy,
Launch out and taste the dewy twilight hour,
Come ere the latest stars have fled, ere dawn
Perfectly seen, unveil the outlined charm
Of bosky wood, deep dells, and odorous copse,
Where blazed with more than gold, some slow-drawn mist
Retreats its distant arm from the cool meads!
Forth, forth, and see what thou hast never seen,
Nor thought, nor in thy wildest fancy touched,
The charms of earliest life, the act of Love,
Still in each day repeated, when from the dark
And sleeping chaos sprang all fair, proud forms.
To even express in faintest hints this birth,
This resurrection of the buried earth,
This weaving of new garments in an hour
For our else naked orb, her fairest moment
In the whole long day, must fail the wariest hand.
Yet what these few faint touches may convey,
Be that conveyed.
Is it pure morning light,
And dewy dawn within thy soul upheld,
Who, from the world retired beholds the day,
Creep with slow fingers from the utmost verge
Of the remote horizon; notes of joy,
Do these prelude within thy thought new life,
When the thick cloud of being veiled in dust,
Drops its obscure concealments and renewed
Shoots like the eagle to new-risen orbs,
Far-spent upon the eternal cope?
Or dost thou never soar, and feebly soiled
With matter's low terrestrial cerements,
Conceal by them that dawn which in thy heart,
Gives prophecy of heaven?
These thoughts not here;
Our simple rustic garb for such befit not,—
More that soaring bard, rapt to a sphere beyond
Time's fallible. Rather, let us pursue
The shaded path, that in the thicket ends;
Where in the blueberry the Cat-bird builds
Shapely of twigs his nest, and mewing near
Proclaims his royal emeralds to all eyes.
Here would the mischief-loving boy, a pest,
Deal prompt confusion, dragging to earth,
Remorseless as the fates, the frail design;
Wreck in a moment the neat finished house,
And with capricious finger smash o'erjoyed
The oval of the egg, short funeral!
Nor trust to lesson him, with brass his nerves
Tight-twisted might appal whole decalogues.